Barcelona will extend metro L2 to Montjuïc and the Logistics Park

The metro will reach Montjuïc and go beyond, to La Marina and the Parc Logístic of the Zona Franca. The City Council and the Govern have agreed to bet on the extension of the L2 from the Sant Antoni stop to the Parc Logístic, in a project that will require a budget of about one billion euros for six stations.

This was agreed by the Minister of Territory, Sílvia Paneque, and the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, who have committed to updating the informative project and the environmental impact study, prior to the tender for the works, which for now do not have a fixed start date, although these preliminary works will last a maximum of 24 months.

Bringing the metro to the Parc Logístic will involve six kilometers of new line with the same design that was planned in 2006, the last time the extension was reviewed by the Govern. Specifically, the tunnel boring machine will have to excavate 5.4 kilometers starting from the Parc Logístic station and up to the L3 Poble-sec station. The works for the remaining 0.6 kilometers of the route, between Poble-sec and Sant Antoni, will be carried out with a tunnel between screens.

The line will have six stations, in addition to Sant Antoni: Poble-sec, where it will connect with the L3; MNAC; Inefc; Foc, with connection to the L10; Fira, with the L9, and Parc Logístic, which will also be an interchange with the L9. "La Marina and the new Fira in Montjuic are two of the neighborhoods with the most growth potential in Barcelona, which justifies the need to extend the L2," the mayor defended.

The project update will also involve reviewing the cost of the works: the more than one billion euros of the budget represent double the calculation that had been made in the last studies, from 2009. The origin of the project dates back to pre-Olympic Barcelona in the 1990s, but it was never executed.

Thus, the project "is an old demand of the city," Collboni defended. In addition, this extension of the L2 will allow better connection of economic and cultural institutions located along its route, such as Fira de Barcelona, the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, the Estadi Olímpic and the Palau Sant Jordi.

In this way, the project "is important for the city not only in terms of mobility, but also to articulate new spaces and centralities," according to Paneque. The minister and the mayor also discussed the need to plan new interurban bus stations in Barcelona in the future, beyond those of Sants, Nord, and Fabra i Puig.

The agreement to extend L2 comes just days after the Government and the City Council also agreed to advance in the extension of L4 to connect it between La Pau and La Sagrera, with the agreement to award the executive project of the project before the end of this year.